According to a Computerworld article, BlackBerry is exploring putting itself up for sale, as the company falls into 4th place in the mobile market. IDC statistics that show Android leads the mobile market with nearly 80%, iOS has 13.2%, Windows Phone 3.7%, and BlackBerry 2.9%. Gartner analyst Bill Menezes states that even new ownership is "not going to address how the company restores itself."

One key asset BlackBerry owns is QNX, the real-time based OS it bought in 2010. QNX is microkernel based, versus the monolithic kernel used by many OS's like Linux. BlackBerry bases its tablet and phone OS's on QNX, which also remains a popular commercial OS for embedded systems.

Uhhhh...what tweaking? Its already been shown that more than half the Android devices never download an app so folks are obviously happy with them as is, and I don't know how it is there but most of the phones I've dealt with in the states have had very little crapware.

Almost every Android cellphone sold around here (France) comes with average to terrible OEM skins (Samsung Touchwiz, HTC Sense...), unremovable preinstalled apps for various local services, and a few carrier-specific apps too if you buy them together in operator bundles (which I don't). Nexus phones are an exception, but they are relatively hard to find outside of Google Play.

Now that said you make it seem like being able to just download an app and change the way my phone works is a bad thing when in reality its one of the things I love the most about my Android!

Yes, being able to tweak everything is great, being forced to on the other hand not so much... Basically, Android is like desktop Linux : the best of tweakability, the worst of usability. Except that contrary to desktop Linux, it actually runs on more than 1% of the phones out there

A "better feature set" or "ready to use OOTB" really aren't selling points and certainly not enough to get a Joe Normal like myself to switch to your product. This is the problem BB has, what they NEED is a whiz bang feature that will wow the crowd or make them hip, like Siri for Apple or the dancing droid, instead from what you are describing nearly all your selling points are under the hood. BB really doesn't have an obvious selling point like the big two and honestly the numbers reflect that.

Well, for that you have the timeshift camera feature, the unified messaging Hub, or the virtual keyboard of the Z10 which is apparently one of the best out there. But I honestly think that such "shiny" features only guide impulse purchases : I know of no iOS user around me that uses Siri for other purposes than impressing friends, and your inability to name a specific killer feature of Android is telling.

Besides, I am sorry to tell you, but if you know which OS your phone runs and use more than 10% of the functionality of that OS, you really aren't Joe Normal.

Ohhh...okay I see the problem. You see here in the states? We really don't see that very much, in fact now that so many are going prepaid (because frankly the plans have gotten crazy priced over here, with insane caps and nasty overage charges) most of us aren't getting our phone from the carrier, you either just buy the phone new and get a prepaid SIM card or pop on Craigslist and grab one there. My LG frankly came with stock Android, no add-ons of any kind, and playing with customers phones I've found theirs to be the same.

As for "having" to tweak? again with stock Android not so much, most of us download and try tweaking apps because they are recommended by friends and family. Being the "resident computer genius" in my group I'm the one always trying new things and recommending them, such as Comodo Mobile Security (not only protects you from malware but has some sweet anti-theft tools along with an optional software manager and memory optimizer) and Comodo Battery Saver (integrates with the former and lets ME decide when and where my 3G and Wifi is active, really stretches out my battery time) but it isn't like I HAD to download those, my phone ran just fine with stock android, i just wanted to try them, just as the default browser works okay but I prefer Dolphin browser because its more feature rich.

But again you are not naming any "oh wow!" kind of features, nothing wrong with the 3MP camera that came with my android, I have a slider so the keyboard thing really isn't a selling point, and you have the HUGE hurdle of nobody writing squat for BB10 whereas i have a bazillion apps I can choose from with my android. i hear you can run Android apps on a BB but they don't run well, being slower and glitchy compared to running native which for an emulator is to be expected.

Oh and "Joe Normal" which for the record i deal with and sell to 6 days a week? yeah they really DO know their phone is an Android, they just can't tell gingerbread from ice cream sandwich from an ice cream sundae. You really have to give Google credit, all those dancing droid commercials and billboards have really made Android a name brand, heck i had a little old lady come into the shop on Friday and when she saw my phone running on the table she said "Oh you have an Android phone? I got one too" and we ended up comparing apps for 10 minutes before she dropped off her laptop LOL.